No longer a pipe dream

Here’s Will Davies on how what used to pass for blue skies thinking is now just down and dirty:

“When David Cameron declared the need for a new constitutional settlement recently, quite a bit of this was based on the capabilities of new technologies such as youtube and text messaging. Leaving aside the overall quality of his vision, I was struck by how credible and necessary this exploitation of digital technology suddenly appeared. Prior to this constitutional crisis, the e-democracy movement had preached e-this, e-that, cyber-parliament, the Big Conversation, a civic commons – none of which ever acquired any political plausibility. It operated in a rhetorical realm in which ‘participation’ and ‘interactivity’ could be celebrated to the heavens, without ever imperilling a decrepit parliamentary system.”

Here’s an illustration. less than a fortnight ago, my kids came home with a letter in their bags saying that the school was considering ending the school day 15 minutes earlier than the current time, and that this change would take place in September. A short consultation period would follow the letter and the governing body would be making a decision … about now.

I ran into half-a-dozen parents that evening at a school play. They were fuming. The consultation period was over the half-term, and it all looked like a done-deal.

Now, as it transpired, I”m prepared to believe that the school was acting in perfectly good faith. The plan had come up quite late in the school year, there was a lot of enthusiasm for it among the staff for good professional reasons. There were a number of reasons why they really needed to get it in place by September. The consultation time-frame was unavoidable.

The parents I met were going to organise over the half term. A few of them are fairly tech-savvy (there’s already a TXT tree), but I’m the one with the reputation on that score and after a few phone-calls, a site was established using a Ning group.

Someone from the PTA has a list of mobile numbers for parents and a text message went around within a day or so. Soon after, the number of registrants to the site had climbed past 50 to it’s current number (74 as I write – not bad for a primary school).

The ensuing discussion was heated. More than 20 people contributed lengthy responses to the consultation – lots of evidence, research, even a spreadsheet of comparisons with other schools and an attempt to cross-reference school hours against performance was loaded up to the site.

A few parents questioned the motives of the teaching staff. Others even questioned their competence. By the time the open meeting started to discuss the event, the senior teachers were struggling to hide their outrage. Some of it was justifiable – feelings were hurt, reputations had been called into question.

They were also slightly baffled. Other schools had done the same thing with their timetables over recent years without a peep from the parents. Now, thanks to the ease of networking, and the convening power that we all can wield using free applications, they were having to offer detailed powerpoint presentations to a well-prepared (and often hostile) bunch of parents.

I’d guess that more than 50 attended the meeting, and I’m waiting to hear what the governing body has decided in the end.

The school now has a growing online community of parents who can ask any questions they like. I’m not convinced that it will make the school any better managed. It may make it worse. It may reward the time-rich Victors. The teachers may feel battered by this experience and think twice before making potentially controversial decisions. They often work 10-12 hour days and weekends to-boot, and they have a right to have grievances against them handled in an orderly, confidential way (web-forums are bad at this).

But of one thing I’m sure: Someone would have set up that site if I hadn’t done. I hope that I did it according to Mick’s advice (it’s now got a set of ‘play the ball not the man’ rules and a moderation policy).

This is the kind of participation that a lot of e-democracy projects would have spend £tens of thousands on a few short years ago. Now, they’re so simple, it’s easier to do them than not do them. Local public servants are starting to get a sense of what MPs and the BBC have felt in recent months.